Itīs about time to finally start a private project I had in mind for over a year now. Actually, yep  itīs going to be just another Avatar version of a girlfriend. But itīs my girl and what makes it that special for me is to show her something what Iīve been talking to her since we first met but could never really explain. I guess everyone whoīs found their true love knows about that very special look from the partner, and if witnessed, makes you instantly fall in love again. This look but only happens as often as a butterfly would land on your toes and does not last for longer than the glimpse of an eye. Iīve never managed to capture this look with an external device to show her. Maybe itīs not even possible to make something like this visible with any scanning device, because it is a deeply inner reaction of oneself triggered through visual impression. Maybe this extra part can only be added by the witness himself to make it be seen. So, the advantage of us who are capable of managing 3D software is to not only recreate photo realism but create emotional expressions too  if we are good at what we do.

I thought it would be a good idea to share progress - not only for beginning people to get an interactive from A to Z tutorial but also for me to hear your input, criticism, and suggestions for improvement. So please anyone, donīt hesitate and feel invited if you like to ask questions or make comments of any kind. But beware! This project will possibly go on for ages... (hope I can get it finished within this year though)

And to say it right in the beginning Iīve never tackled a project like this. Although my personal interests always grounded on organic modelling and stuff, Iīve been used to make money mainly with architecture and product visuals so far.

To cut the long story short, hereīs the plan:

Final image composition should be comprised of about 4 different views with different facial expressions in size of around 60*60 inches or something like that.

1)
modeling human bust in high resolution with as much detail within the geometry as needed. (folds, wrinkles) normalMapping should only be used for pores etc since the final render will be QUITE large.

2)
Skinning, rigging + blendshapes and all necessary deforming methods to bring the face to life

3)
Deriving an Avatar version from the human model + maybe linking human to avatar skin (by the help of a lot of point/cluster constraints... I have no clue so far)

4)
Texturing and shading with skinshaders + final mapResolution of 8192x8192 pixels to make it a printable version

5)
making use of Mayaīs Hair System for all sorts of hair. not only on head but also for the fine hair on skin and feather stuff.

6)
creating fancy HDRI light setups to push it towards photo realism with different environments like the night time jungle and Hallelujah Mountains. Size also around 8192x8192 pixels per facial expression rendering.

Final composition will decorate our living room

__________________
everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

Well, Iīve freehand modeled heads in the past (with fotoreference ofc) but what Iīve always found to be the hardest thing to overcome is the perspective distortion from a picture taken. you could minimize that perspective distortion by going back as far as possible and zoom in with the camera to the max, but still - getting good resolution pictures with minimal perspective in it (orthographic compact cameras would be great..) isnīt the easiest.

So I was looking for a cheap method to scan the actual real-life geometry. Everyone knows 3D-Scanning can become quite expensive but after some googling I found a small company which scannes your face in 3D and then laseres into a high quality glass cube threedimensionally. Their product sold is this lasered cube and it costs you 20-200 Euros depending of the cube size (2-20 cm). Usually they donīt sell Data and no one asked before I did. So they found it to be interesting. Since it was Valentineīs Day My girl and me got us one of these cubes. The other 10 Scans I let them take from her head were allmost for free. (cost me around 20 bucks). I found this to be the cheapest way to get the most precise reference for starting the modeling process.

Hereīs a sample of the lasered glass cube.

Attached Thumbnails

__________________
everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

Here are some results of the scan taken. (I also did let her make some funny faces for later on )

As you can clearely see the disadvantage is, that the scan only works within a range of 180°. And it isnīt that precise in detail since it is after all just a mix of a planar projection of black(shadow) and white(light) lines onto the subject which are then measured in its deviation by some capturing device. you can clearely see the rasterization on the geometry surface. but its just ok for my purpose since Iīm most interested in the bigger image concering correct proportioning of the head.

the scans are now used like 3D foto reference. Iīm going to block out my raw model on top of that in the beginning. later on foto reference material will be used for detailing as usual.

Attached Thumbnails

__________________
everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

About Us

A little bit about who we are

People we like

Links you might find useful

Connect with

Catch up with SimplyMaya

SimplyMaya specialises in Maya tutorials. We offer over 1,000 individual Maya training videos, ranging from basic Maya tutorials through to intermediate Maya tutorials. Our tutorials are created by instructors with industry experience and are designed to get you up and running in Maya quickly without making it seem like hard work.